I do love getting books to review, and one of the most appropriate I’ve been offered recently (given my well-documented lack of time these days) was Hint Fictionby Robert Swartwood. Its subtitle tells it all: “An anthology of stories in 25 words or fewer”.

Now, I must admit that before the review copy arrived, I was skeptical. I’m not a huge fan of the whole flash fiction thing because I find it hard to believe you really can tell a story without using at least a few pages. And 25 words seemed like a ridiculously low number. You may know that famous Hemingway six-word story:

For sale: baby shoes, never worn.

Some say yes, poignant, telling, what a story, and I say, I’ve got at least six pairs of baby shoes I was given for my own baby that he never wanted to wear, and I could sell them too, without having any sad story behind it. So yes, I was very skeptical before Hint Fiction arrived on my doorstep.

However, I’m also man enough (woman enough?) to admit that I’ve changed my tune. For a start, sending a collection like Hint Fiction to a new mother was genius. It was the kind of book I could get through in a day or two (writing the review has taken a little longer though!). Stories that are less than 25 words in length are ideal for those in-between minutes of life. And I was surprised and impressed at just how much story some writers could fit into their 25 words. The idea, Swartwood says, of “hint fiction” is that these couple of sentences suggest “a larger, more complex story” and in many cases they really do that, and send you right off into the realms of “what if” and “what else”.

The collection is divided into three parts – “Life & Death”, “Love & Hate”, and for all the miscellaneously-themed stories, “This & That”. Not every story impressed me – some seemed more like a random sentence out of a bigger story than a true “hint fiction” suggestion of something more – but enough got me thinking that I would highly recommend the book. Especially to mothers of young babies who are struggling to finish a book at the moment!

Since this contest fell on a day when I had nothing else planned (although all other new mothers will also laugh at the idea of having “nothing else planned” – that doesn’t mean we actually have any time), I decided to take a chance, sign up, and beg my husband for a couple of free hours while he looked after our baby boy.

This worked, but a couple of hours is not much time when I still had a million other things to get done. But the great part about having to look after a baby is that you really have to make the most of your writing time. This meant that while I was “sshh-ing” him to sleep this morning, I was thinking of plot ideas. When we went for our after lunch walk (designed to put him to sleep, although it failed again), I was trying out different plot twists. I managed to get both of us back alive but I did notice myself snapping out of my plotting daydreams a few times to realise that I didn’t quite remember walking from one side of the park to the other – fortunately my pram seems to know the way itself these days.

This evening, baby in bed, husband fed, cats curled up next to me, I sat down and hammered out my 950 word short story as fast as I could. Having spent much more time than usual thinking about it seemed to help. Usually, my habit is to do a lot of brainstorming in front of the computer, recording lots of different ideas as I go. Thinking about it on the go instead seemed to narrow down my ideas as I could only manage to remember the best ones. Whether or not this meant I got a better story is debatable, but I’m happy with the one I’ve got, especially considering it was done in a relatively limited time. Another good lesson for me on how it’s possible to write, even when you don’t have any time.

I thought I’d try it out with my Bratislava novel draft. Given that I’ve tried really hard to have three different voices there, with alternating chapters narrated by three different characters (three very different characters, I had hoped), what I wanted to see is that each of the chapters “sounded like” a different writer.

So did they? Yes and no. Being a bit of a research-head, I didn’t just try one extract in the “I Write Like” analysis, but several, from different parts of the book. For each character I sometimes got a different writer: James Joyce, Bram Stoker and Dan Brown (! Oh no! I think I probably have it on public record that I think Dan Brown is a terrible writer!!). But for each of the characters, and then also with the synopsis I wrote, one name kept coming up: Kurt Vonnegut.

Kurt Vonnegut? Really?? Didn’t he write weird science fiction stuff? Um, I actually have to admit I don’t remember reading any of his novels although I have a feeling I was meant to read Slaughterhouse Five at uni. Well, I’m intrigued now and must go away and read some of his stuff and try to figure out why this odd little bit of software would say I write in his style. Eek.

Having said that, I did Wikipedia him (has Wikipedia become a verb yet, like Google? It has for me!) and found something good. Vonnegut has created eight rules for writing a short story that may help me when I head back to that form at some stage:

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
4. Every sentence must do one of two things—reveal character or advance the action.
5. Start as close to the end as possible.
6. Be a Sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them—in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To hell with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

Sounds like mostly good advice, and I love the idea of cockroaches eating the final pages, even if I’m not sure I agree with that final point. And now I’m off to track down some Vonnegut books at the local library. Once I pay my overdue fines, that is.

Just before Christmas, a colleague of mine excitedly recommended a book she was reading (thanks, Kath!): The Doorbells of Florenceby Andrew Losowsky. It’s quite a special book to look at – a small hard back with nice quality paper, full of colour photographs, graphics and an attractive font. And it’s not only attractive physically, but the whole idea of it is absolutely adorable.

Basically, it was inspired by Losowsky’s random decision to photograph a bunch of doorbells in Florence. Fortunately, Italian doorbells are a lot more beautiful than my rather uninspiring doorbell, shown above. Anyway, once he had his bunch of doorbell pictures, usually including the names of the various tenants who occupied the building, Losowsky let his imagination run wild and he wrote short (usually very short) stories to explain something of the lives of the people living in the building. And that’s what is in this book. It’s perhaps a little hard to explain, but it’s just gorgeous and you should see it for yourself.

When I went to read a bit more about Losowsky and his doorbell project, I discovered that he’d first published parts of it on Flickr (the web home to billions of photos) as “Flicktion” – that is, a collection of Flickr photos which have a piece of fiction attached to them. It’s worth having a browse through the Flicktion tag over at Flickr to see what else other people have been doing. In any case, this book has got me totally inspired. I want to make my own! I’ve got so many ideas for what kind of objects I could “collect” to inspire some stories. And one day I’ll do it – just watch this space, okay?!

(In the meantime, if anyone can concoct a good story to match my uninspiring doorbell, I’d be most impressed. I don’t think I can do it.)

But – there’s always a but – I recently found the information about an interesting novella contest. It’s being run by the online journal Fail Better (love the name!) and it’s their 10th anniversary novella contest. Free to enter, a $500 prize, but most importantly, the incentive to write a novella before the closing date of May 15, 2010. You know how I love a deadline!

I’ve never really contemplated writing a novella before, I must admit. But the idea definitely intrigues me, and with all the different ideas for novels that I have floating around in my head, I’m sure that once I examine them a bit more closely, there’s bound to be one that is better suited to a novella. For the purposes of this contest at least the Fail Better people are defining a novella roughly like this:

Length is obviously the main criterion, i.e. the thing should be longer than a short story, and not so long as a novel … one could argue—as have certain critics, whose names we wish we remembered—that a novella, in order not to be a novel, should focus on one story and one set of characters, not spending appreciable time on others, of either. In order not to be a “mere” short story, it should go into more depth, about both.

Perhaps the definition is what sparked my interest, because going into more depth about characters and story fixes the problem I have with the short story, but the length means that it’s more manageable than a novel. So, my goals are:

1. Sit down and brainstorm all the ideas for novels I’ve had – this is useful just of itself, to prevent me losing a few that I’ve probably never written down anywhere.
2. Figure out which of these ideas is best suited to a novella. That is, I guess, which one is concentrated solely on a relatively small set of characters. The contest guidelines also say it should be a novella that can be readily serialised, so I’ll need to think about the plot lines for that.
3. Make a plan of how much to write and when, so that I have plenty of time to finish it before the deadline and still have a chance to edit it well.
4. WRITE IT!

As usual, I’ll keep you informed. In the meantime, I’m curious to know if any fellow writers out there have written novellas, and how was the experience? Was it significantly less painful than writing a novel, or much the same? Please let me know any experiences you’ve had with novellas in the comments.

]]> http://becomingafictionwriter.com/2010/01/writing-a-novella-the-short-storynovel-compromise/feed/ 4 http://becomingafictionwriter.com/2009/12/nam-le-deserves-100000-short-stories/ http://becomingafictionwriter.com/2009/12/nam-le-deserves-100000-short-stories/#comments Tue, 29 Dec 2009 01:17:14 +0000 amanda http://becomingafictionwriter.com/?p=362 When it was announced around two years ago that the new government had created the Prime Minister’s Literary Prize worth A$100,000 for the best fiction and non-fiction books of the year, I was pretty impressed. It’s truly nice to see writers getting some monetary recognition of the thousands of hours of work that go into the writing of a novel – or in the case of the 2009 winner, Nam Le, a collection of short stories.

I’ve been having a bit of an ambivalent relationship with short stories recently. I’d like to write more of them, because they’re obviously a smaller investment of time than a novel, and therefore valuable in the sense of getting practice at polishing my writing and getting some fiction published. But then I feel like a bit of a fraud, because what I really want to do is write novels, and short stories really are an entirely different genre, and it’s not fair to treat them as a “mini novel” just to get some practice. So I’d more or less abandoned reading them when Nam Le’s collection The Boat was announced to be the winner of the 2009 Prime Minister’s Literary Award. Then I figured I had to read it.

Obviously, The Boat is an extremely well-written collection of stories. You can’t fault Nam Le’s writing. And if you look around the web at the various reviews, most people seem to think you can’t fault is diversity, either: the stories range from assassins in Colombia to Vietnamese women on boats to elderly men in America, so Nam Le is clearly able to write way beyond his personal experience.

But. I’m sorry to say there’s a “but”. I really want to adore this collection of stories. And I definitely think that Le deserves his $100,000, for he’s an extremely talented writer, and has got a lot of well-deserved praise. But, personally, I just felt like this collection is too diverse, too unconnected, and I know there’s no rule that says a collection of short stories should be connected but I just felt like they all belonged elsewhere. I mean, I guess if I read these stories elsewhere and independently, I would recognise Nam Le’s style and feel them to be a little connected, but as a book to hold in my hands and read, it just doesn’t do it for me. And my second (related) “but” is that knowing these stories all came from the same author disconcerted me a little; it’s hard to believe that one person could know so much about the life and culture in Iran, Colombia, Vietnam and Australia, all at once. Of course, in a way that’s the sign of a great fiction writer, but I just felt like I couldn’t quite trust him that it’s all how it really is. Okay, enough of my rambling, because obviously thousands of other people love this book, so I’ll leave you to decide for yourselves.

]]> http://becomingafictionwriter.com/2009/12/nam-le-deserves-100000-short-stories/feed/ 0 http://becomingafictionwriter.com/2009/01/will-another-24-hour-short-story-get-written/ http://becomingafictionwriter.com/2009/01/will-another-24-hour-short-story-get-written/#comments Sun, 25 Jan 2009 03:28:24 +0000 amanda http://becomingafictionwriter.com/?p=186 It’s that time again: the Writers Weekly 24-hour short story contest is happening today. Right now, as I type, in fact. Each time I seem to get just a little bit better at turning out a half-decent short story within a day; last time I wrote a story that I still actually like, a few months later.

I’m stuck! My story has no ending!

This time round the contest theme connected to a wedding in a small chapel. After a few paragraphs of brainstorming and free-writing, I found some interesting characters and got them on their way to the chapel. I’m really happy with the first 650 words of my story, considering it all came slithering out on a Sunday morning. Right now, somebody in the story needs to object to the marriage. The word limit for the contest this time is 950, so I’ve got plenty of room to get a great ending in. Because, as everybody knows, there’s no good story without a good ending.

But I’ve got stuck. I’ve tried walking away from the story for a couple of hours. Daydreaming about it while in the shower, which usually provides me with tonnes of ideas. Asking my husband. Googling the topic. (Who would’ve thought that “objecting at a wedding” would have been such a talked about topic on the web?) And so on.

So my only solution now, apart from giving up (I promise I won’t) is to open the file again and just keep typing and typing until something decent comes out. I’ve got my subconscious on the job, even my husband keeps popping into my room with new ideas, and somewhere, somehow, the right ending is waiting for me. I’ll let you know if I find it.

Update: The story has an ending!

Phew! This strategy worked. Random brainstorming and just writing more and more finally led me to an answer and an ending. I tried to follow last contest’s strategy of having some twists followed by more twists, and I hope I succeeded. I think the story ended up okay, although it’s not a topic I would usually write about. I’ve sent it off and that means it’s time to get back to working on my novel after this brief short fiction interlude. The bonus is that this means I’ve now submitted two short stories to markets or contests this year so according to my goals I just have 18 more to go.

]]> http://becomingafictionwriter.com/2009/01/will-another-24-hour-short-story-get-written/feed/ 1 http://becomingafictionwriter.com/2008/10/surprising-myself-with-a-short-story-for-the-christmas-season/ http://becomingafictionwriter.com/2008/10/surprising-myself-with-a-short-story-for-the-christmas-season/#comments Tue, 14 Oct 2008 02:30:45 +0000 amanda http://becomingafictionwriter.com/?p=154 With my teaching load finally reduced (I’ve been doing extra work at that job for the past three months or so – there’s a massive shortage of ESL teachers in Perth!), this week I have actually had two days at home to get my writing work done. Of course, I actually need about three or four, but two days is certainly better than one. And it was great timing because I’ve been trying to write a Christmas-themed short story for a contest which closes tomorrow.

The idea for the story has been sitting in my head for ages – well years, actually, since I visited “the real Santa” in Finnish Lapland a few Christmases back. But I had almost given up hope of having time to get the story out and looking good in time for this contest deadline, until I woke up early this morning and realised that I had enough time to give it a go and still make the rest of my regular writing deadlines today.

The story is half fun and half serious, but I had a lot of fun writing it. And the best surprise of all was the ending, because it changed. About half way through I suddenly remembered the advice I’d used in the last 24-hour short story contest: to lead the plot towards a twist, and then suddenly twist again in the other direction! And I managed to do that with this story (successfully, I hope) and I really rather like it. And it’s quite rare that I say that about a short story I’ve written – I often despise them later.

Anyway, the result of the morning’s work is that after having no more than an outline, I now have a 2,500 word short story sitting on the dinner table to edit later. (And take at least 250 words out, using Stephen King’s 10% rule!). Of course, I may already despise it by the time I read it again later on, but I hope not, and in any case it’ll definitely be heading in to the contest tomorrow.

]]> http://becomingafictionwriter.com/2008/10/surprising-myself-with-a-short-story-for-the-christmas-season/feed/ 2 http://becomingafictionwriter.com/2008/09/my-fourth-attempt-at-the-24-hour-short-story-contest/ http://becomingafictionwriter.com/2008/09/my-fourth-attempt-at-the-24-hour-short-story-contest/#comments Mon, 29 Sep 2008 05:35:54 +0000 amanda http://becomingafictionwriter.com/?p=149 Each time I enter the quarterly Writers Weekly 24-hour short story contests, I try to use a different approach to writing the short story. I’m a little ashamed to say that this year, these are the only short stories I’ve written, but it’s definitely been more of a long fiction year.

Anyway, in the July competition I did a lot more serious plot planning than usual; back in April I did a lot of brainstorming and then a one-hit write. This time round I decided to use a strategy I’d read about during the week from some info I got from the Australian Writing Academy, who sent me a small brochure about short story writing that had some surprisingly useful tips.

Basically, I followed the suggestion of outlining the story in advance, including some obstacles and how they’re overcome, and right at the end – “after” the end, in fact – adding another twist. I was quite surprised about how well this strategy worked. I planned what I thought was, on its own, a complete story, and then continued it by adding a twist, and to me it seems like that has worked out really well. I’m not sure that it produces a particularly “literary” story, but then again, the brochure is about writing short stories that sell, so they’re probably not intended to be too “literary”, so to speak.

I was also very conscious of avoiding unnecessary remarks and doing more showing than telling. A simple example: the story includes two main characters, a mother and son. When I first mention the son (by name rather than “her son”) I used to think I should immediately explain that the man is the son … but I can let readers just assume that – it sounds like he probably is just from the context – and a bit later on they can be sure when he arrives and addresses her as “Mum”. I do too much “overstating” when I write, forgetting that the reader is actually a smart cookie who can figure out tonnes of stuff for themselves. So it was good practice for me to remember this through a whole short (short) story.

One last ramble on the short story contest topic: I do love the chance to write something – more importantly, to have to write something – on a topic that’s not of my choosing. This contest still gives plenty of scope for slanting the topic into something that’s of interest to you, but you have to start with something supplied and then get creative. This is definitely good for me and something I should try to do more often.

]]> http://becomingafictionwriter.com/2008/09/my-fourth-attempt-at-the-24-hour-short-story-contest/feed/ 3 http://becomingafictionwriter.com/2008/08/it-seems-that-i-have-original-ideas-at-least-occasionally/ http://becomingafictionwriter.com/2008/08/it-seems-that-i-have-original-ideas-at-least-occasionally/#comments Mon, 18 Aug 2008 07:03:52 +0000 amanda http://becomingafictionwriter.com/?p=133 Remember a few weeks ago I wrote another short story for a Writers Weekly 24-hour contest? Well, results are still not in yet, but what I read on the Writers Weekly site today still cheered me up somewhat.

Angela Hoy of Writers Weekly wrote a post this week about the common themes that she found in the several hundred short story entries for this contest. Remember, every story has to be based on the given topic – that’s one of the ways they ensure you really do write it within the 24-hour time period – and apparently, this means that many writers end up writing pretty similar stories. Her post included a long list of themes or plots that were common across several or more stories, and the reason I’m cheered up is this: the themes from my story didn’t make this list at all. So if nothing else, it seems that my idea was somewhat original. Whether the idea is good or not is another story, but being original is certainly a positive thing from where I’m standing.

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